Scientology is hard to take seriously. Its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, claimed that 75 million years ago a galactic dictator called Xenu brought billions of people, known as Thetans, to Earth (then known as Teegeeack) and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Today, their frozen souls “loiter and make us crabby unless we know how to deal with them – which is, obviously, by joining Tom Cruise and John Travolta in becoming a Scientologist. Yet, silly though this sounds, is it really any less plausible than, say, the burning bush that spoke to Moses? People call Scientology a cult, because it is accused of separating believers from their families, fleecing them, and bullying those who leave. Yet there are few religions that have not faced such accusations.

If the consequences of religious toleration ever seem silly to you, said Boyd Tonkin in The Independent, then you only need consider the alternative “in 17th century England, maybe, or in the Central African Republic today”. Religious liberty is of course “essential to a free society”, said The Times, “but that doesn’t mean that Scientology should be given, for instance, the same tax advantages as more respectable religions. We must be tolerant, but we needn’t be respectful to a crank organisation espousing absurd doctrines concocted by a pathological fantasist, plagiarist, bigamist and charlatan”. (Tanya Gold in The Sunday Times).

Epicureans have no need of these ludicrous beliefs. The pursuit of happiness (Jefferson was a follower of Epicurus), of friendship, of love, of wonder at the world and universe, and of the acquisition of knowledge are more than sufficient.